HISTORY OF THE POTATO. 37 



However locally this solanum might have been 

 planted, yet it appears, after consulting a variety 

 of agricultural reports, garden books, husband- 

 men's directions, &c. down to the statements of 

 Arthur Young, that the potato has not been grown 

 in gardens in England more than one hundred and 

 seventy years ; or to any extent in the field above 

 seventy-five. At length, however, as better sorts 

 were introduced, and better modes of dressing found 

 out, it became esteemed ; and the value of this 

 most inestimable root was so rapidly manifested, 

 and the demand for it so great, that we find by 

 a survey made about thirty years ago, that the 

 county of Essex alone cultivated about seventeen 

 hundred acres for the London market. I know 

 not the extent of land now required for the supply 

 of our metropolis, but it must be prodigious. 



Amidst the numerous remarkable productions 

 ushered into the old continent from the new world, 

 there are two which stand preeminently conspicuous 

 from their general adoption; unlike in their na- 

 tures, both have been received as extensive bless- 

 ings the one by its nutritive powers tends to 

 support, the other by its narcotic virtues to soothe 

 and comfort the human frame the potato and 

 tobacco; but very different was the favour with 

 which these plants were viewed : the one, long re- 

 jected, by the slow operation of time, and perhaps 

 of necessity, was at length cherished, and has be- 



